Chapter 773: The Foremost Warrior of the Kingdom of France

Li Shaoyou's wife was named Elizabeth Eugénie, a noblewoman from the Kingdom of Bavaria, of the House of Wittelsbach. Her father had been an officer in the Bavarian army and had fallen in the latter stages of the Thirty Years' War. Because at the time of his death he held only a knight's title and had received no fief or estate, his death left Elizabeth, his only daughter, suddenly without support. She had no choice but to go alone to Vienna to seek refuge with a relative—an elderly bishop—and somehow she had become entangled with Li Shaoyou, and before long the two had fallen in love.

However, although this cross-national marriage had received the blessing of the Lord (Li Shaoyou pretended to have converted), it had not won the approval of the Li family elders (Li Ruolian). So Li Shaoyou had taken the initiative to ask Ji Kun for the assignment of escorting the Prince of Condé to China, and took the opportunity to bring his wife back with him.

He first accompanied the Prince of Condé to Alexandria, then traveled overland to the Red Sea port city of Suez, where they boarded Ottoman naval vessels to Aden. There they waited for five great bird-ships carrying one thousand Arabian horses and five Western-style sailing ships—including one British naval warship—that had rounded Africa, including the Feixiang, and then all returned east together.

As for that Prince of Condé, the First Prince of France, who did not like to bathe, stank to high heaven, and was short, wretched, and scrawny—Li Shaoyou could not have held him in greater contempt.

This fellow looked at a glance like a good-for-nothing prince, probably much the same sort as those Ming princes who idled away their days waiting to die.

Yet Li Shaoyou's wife, Elizabeth Eugénie, was utterly deferential to the Prince of Condé, and even insisted that Prince Condé was the foremost warrior of the Kingdom of France. Was she joking? Looking as wretched as that, he could be the foremost warrior? The army of the Kingdom of France must all be useless, then?

Fortunately this country was in Europe. If it were in the East and ran into the various Tartars, would it not be destroyed and its people wiped out?

"Ambassador Li," the Prince of Condé yawned, "I hear your country has been invaded by barbarians and is fighting a war of national defense?"

"Yes," Li Shaoyou said. "Under the command of our Ming Emperor, we will surely recover our lost territory."

The Prince of Condé nodded. "I think I might do something for His Majesty the Ming Emperor—serve as a military adviser, for instance. If he trusts me enough, I could command an army corps of twenty or thirty thousand men for him."

What grand talk! Li Shaoyou thought to himself: The Tartars are fierce! You could not beat them.

But whatever he thought in his heart, he could not say it aloud.

"That would be wonderful," Li Shaoyou said with a respectful smile. "I will certainly report Your Highness's intentions to the Ming Emperor."

Of course, the memorial would also carry Li Shaoyou's own opinion—this French prince was mean-looking, arrogant in temperament, lacking in talent, and unfit for any great responsibility!

"Good, then that is settled." The Prince of Condé had no idea that he had already been looked down upon. Although he was rather wretched in appearance, in Europe no one had ever slighted him because of his looks—he was the First Prince of France! And in this age, among the top nobility of Europe there were plenty of misshapen specimens; few were of imposing appearance.

Among the middle and lesser nobility, however, there were many handsome men and beautiful women—such as Elizabeth Eugénie, who had figure and face alike, and moreover a special air about her; one could tell at a glance she came from the lesser nobility.

Li Shaoyou's memorials were not only the one "recommending" Condé, the foremost warrior of the Kingdom of France, but also a great pile of reports on affairs and commendations for merit—the gains of the mission of Ji Kun and Li Shaoyou along the way had simply been too rich! And there had been far too much to record; the memorials filled an entire chest, and the memorial paper brought from China had run out, so they had to use notebooks produced in Holland instead.

After arriving in Shanghai, Li Shaoyou arranged for the Prince of Condé and the ambassador of the Ottoman Empire—a middle-aged man named Semiz—along with more than two hundred attendants of the two missions, to lodge together in Shanghai's state guesthouse, while he had Luo Dagong arrange a fast boat to send him to Wuhan to report to Emperor Zhu.

"Old Father-in-law, please sit, please sit, hahaha..."

It was again the time approaching the end of the year, and Emperor Zhu was at that moment receiving Zheng Zhilong at East Lake Palace in Wuhan, and was especially courteous, personally coming out of the great hall to greet him and taking old Zheng by the hand into the Hall of Diligent Governance. For no other reason than that Zheng Chagu had just borne a son for Zhu Cilang.

Zhu Cilang now had four sons. The realm and the altars of state need not worry about lacking an heir!

"Old Father-in-law, has the Ministry of Revenue finished its final accounts?"

After the two, father-in-law and son-in-law, had taken their seats, Emperor Zhu asked about the Ministry of Revenue's final accounts. The so-called Ministry of Revenue final accounts were the annual accounting report compiled from the results of executing the yearly budget—more or less the annual report of the state's finances.

Beginning in the third year of Hongxing, the Ministry of Revenue's final accounts were to be made public in the Capital Gazette, under the fine-sounding name of "open accounting."

"Done, all done." Zheng Zhilong smiled. "Last year may be counted as fair weather and a thriving economy; the surplus in the final accounts can be made to reach ten million taels of silver."

Because the "Yellow River, Huai River, and Grand Canal Great Works" had been completed, the greatest fiscal black hole of the Ming had been plugged the previous year. The Huainan and Huaibei regions had a bumper harvest. At the same time, the remitted taxes from the three great commercial cities of Shanghai, Ningbo, and Guangzhou (Quanzhou was contracted to the Dongning Army) and the two capitals east and west (Yingtian Prefecture and Wuhan Prefecture), as well as the southeastern prefectures of Suzhou, Hangzhou, Huaiyang, and others, had also increased greatly. Thus a budget surplus of as much as ten million taels had appeared in the finances.

Of course, these ten million taels were only money on the books; in reality the surplus was stored mainly in the form of grain.

"Too much!" Zhu Cilang waved a hand. "Make it a loss!"

"What? Make it a loss?" Zheng Zhilong was taken aback.

That the final accounts could of course be adjusted on the books was something Zhu Cilang had long ago explained to Zheng Zhilong.

No set of accounts was entirely true, because there were simply too many places that could be adjusted and whitewashed; accountants could produce profits, and just as easily produce losses.

So the system of "public disclosure of the state budget" that Zhu Cilang promoted was in reality a trick for him to manipulate at will.

"Right!" Zhu Cilang said. "Make a loss of about five million taels, and then draw up a plan to issue ten million taels in bonds. This plan need not be done by the Ministry of Revenue itself; hand it over to the two banks to handle."

"A loss of five million?" Zheng Zhilong looked worried. "Your Majesty, last year we truly did earn quite a lot. How do we make it a loss?"

"The price of grain has fallen!" Zhu Cilang said. "What is the wholesale price of rice on the market now, per shi?"

"It varies from place to place. Here in Wuhan, white rice is under one tael and two mace."

Zhu Cilang said: "Count the stockpiles as old rice, and shift it around at eight mace—out the left hand, in the right hand; that will do. Not even the gods could see through it. And do not shift all of it—just enough to make a loss of a bit over five million taels."

"Your Majesty," Zheng Zhilong was still somewhat reluctant, "the whole Ministry of Revenue has worked diligently. To lose it all at once—everyone..."

"It has nothing to do with the people of the Ministry of Revenue. The rewards that should be given will still be given," Zhu Cilang said. "We only want the loss on the books. This is to deceive the eastern barbarians, to let them know that we have no money to fight a war!"

With the Ministry of Revenue suffering a huge loss, the public bonds of course could not be issued, and the Ming's finances were in difficulty, so naturally there would be no money to support a northern expedition. Thus Ajige and Dodo could set their minds at ease and fall to fighting among themselves.

This whole act was put on for that pair of good brothers in the north!

Zheng Zhilong finally understood. "This subject receives the decree." He thought for a moment, then added, "Your Majesty, if we are putting on a show, we must do it thoroughly. The Ministry of Revenue's deficit can be made up from the privy purse."

How much was in the privy purse he did not know, because the privy purse accounts were likewise a tool for displaying the frugality of the imperial house and the filial piety of Zhu Cilang—the income of the privy purse came from the "gold flower silver" issued by the Ministry of Revenue, which was, in other words, Zhu Cilang's salary. In addition there was the rent income from the imperial estates, called "seed-grain silver." The land of the imperial estates likewise came from allocations. The two incomes together amounted to about 2.3 million taels of silver per year—this was the public annual income of Zhu Cilang and Chongzhen, father and son. Of this, Chongzhen spent nearly one million taels, while Zhu Cilang's annual expenses came to less than three hundred thousand taels.

Of course, all that was for show. Zhu Cilang's true personal wealth did not enter the privy purse accounts, but was kept on the books of the undisclosed Imperial Chamber of Commerce.

(End of Chapter)